How Do I Ever Get Anything Done Here?

This time for the short trip south I didn't pack a lot of projects to do as I had the sneaking suspicion a lot wouldn't get done but figured some would! Wrong... How can you sit inside when it is sunny and 70 out? Well, you can't.. It's like my various trips to London when I swore I would visit the British Museum on a rainy day. Four trips and no rain so finally had to go on a sunny day (we did have rain later that week though).

These are the brightly blooming roses in front of the beach house!

At least I have taken the sewing machine out of the closet and set it up hoping to inspire some work at night at least. Nothing spectacular is up for creation anyway -- just using some of the strips and squares I diligently cut over the past couple of weeks, getting rid of some of "too little for projects or for selling but too big for giveaway" fabric I had. It has its own built in pallette as they were leftovers from former projects, the Dear Jane's of my past as well as the "I Spy" quilts.

But most of the time I sit and read or walk along the beach trying to catch a peak at a new bird. Same old willets though!

This is the most common gull down here -- the relatively large ring billed gull. There are a lot of laughing gulls as well as tons of pelicans!

There were these two cute little girls feeding the flock of ring billed gulls on the beach today.

Of course, still taking pictures from the third floor of the house. This is a gulf fritillary I presume -- I have seen lots of these, buckeyes and the sulphurs.

This is one of the buckeyes. The flowers next door had almost died out in September when we were here. Everything is blooming now!

This is a Ruddy Turnstone in his winter plummage. He kind of looks like a pigeon. I hadn 't seen one of these down on our section of the beach before.

Catching Up!

It's been a long time between postings! It's time to get down to business and start doing some sewing in the new year and I am prepared.

The last couple of weeks have been consumed with a Christmas visit to my daughter's in Charlotte and then back to the beach house where I now sit. The past several days I have had the great pleasure of entertaining my old roommate from my single Philadelphia days! We always get back together and can talk like we never have been apart and it has been over 40 years!! She currently is teaching art at Winthrop University in SC so she had lots of insights to share about art in general and my meager attempts at art quilts. She has a wonderful eye and besides looking at some of my "creations", we looked at the work of several others and analyzed the positives and problems. It was a great exercise. Her favorite of mine was actually a picture of the back of one of my tops where the papers were still! That was very inspirational as it told me that my lines were good and that I could play with color or value and come up with something a lot more interesting -- she really thought my quilt tops gave too much away and didn't let the viewer have to work.

One last picture from my last day at Fort Myers Beach. This was a really nice tri-color heron looking out over the early morning waters. We had a great day of shell collecting that last day down at Lover's Key.


Lisa's kitty Paca loves to cuddle up with her and put his arms around her neck and sleep.

Warren and Lisa spent Christmas week working on this year's list of projects to get done. She has recently remodelled her kitchen so needed some finishing touches there, some mouldings to be finished elsewhere and then a new addition to the list, fixing the screens on her screen porch. Her Maine coon kitty is extremely clever about finding ways to break out and will push his way out if he can -- but only at night! While they had several of the screens off, this Carolina Wren and a friend found themselves trapped inside until Warren shushed them away toward the open space.



This is Lisa's other kitty Yahi (the Maine coon) perched on top of the kitchen cabinets, his place of choice while inside because our pint sized kitty George just terrorized him!! Even after a month together, we couldn't keep them in the same room without George chasing Yahi until he would flee to the top of the kitchen cabinets!

The weather is cool here but the sun is brightly shining and warming everything up each day. I don't mind the snow or the cold in the north, but I do loathe the short days with little or no sunshine. Before we bought this house, I checked Wunderground to see what the usual weather was down here in January and when I saw that it was usually sunny, it was a sale!

The sewing machine is out and ready to do some mandatory pillow making for our new futons. After that, I will play a bit with the piles of strips that I have left over from other projects. Those that don't get used this trip will get contributed to the quilt club free table in February. More to come!

Just a Small Town Gal

Well, coming from the large metropolis of Rochester, NY, I am finding it fun to quickly get to know my neighbors in Kure Beach -- which is 7/8 mile long and has a year round population of about 1800 people!! I have now met the people who own the other half of our duplex, their next door neighbors and the neighbors on the other side of us!! It's a small world as our neighbor who owns the house and empty lot next to us lives only three blocks from Lisa in Charlotte! The people behind us are also from Charlotte so Lisa will be able to carpool which will be nice for her! There are some fulltime people in the neighborhood as well as many of us part-timers so we can keep up with what is going on.

There is all sorts of neighborhood gossip, so we will have to behave down here or the world will shortly know! I had forgotten about small towns and how everyone knows everyone and most people are very accepting of new people!

It has been a fun day and our beds have arrived so no more sleeping on an air mattress!! I am patiently waiting for the living room to show up anytime now which will be nice!! The big room on the bottom floor keeps calling to me and asking to be a sewing room but I would have to buy out my daughter before that will happen!!! It would be perfect!! Nice and big and has tile floor and a bathroom right there! Maybe I can slowly but surely sneak in some sewing machines and tables.....


Our new tv stand minus a nice tv! We will be upgrading the tv to a wide screen with our next visit thanks to Lisa. This was our one big splurge as we liked the looks of this and it felt "beachy".

This is Warren enjoying the new living room furniture which is super comfy!

This is the kitchen looking a little lived in right now. We don't have wastepaper baskets or a recycling bin yet so we are improvising with trash bags and shopping bags!

This is one of the bedrooms with the new bed and a quilt gracing it (for now). It was my "quilt from hell" that has tons of pieces, all of which I had to trim!

An old high school classmate stopped by with his wife (John and Marilyn) this morning, so they were the first official visitors to the new house and they just had to take the tour. I of course wanted to show them the elevator but it was being used by the furniture guy who was also there. The weather, like the previous weekend, has been absolutely gorgeous -- t-shirts by noon even though it gets cold at night. There hasn't been a cloud in the sky at any time!